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Couchbase Scores $25 Million for NoSQL Database

Couchbase raises new funds, but loses a key technical contributor as it moves forward toward a new database release.

Open-source NoSQL database vendor Couchbase has raised a new $25 million Series D round of funding to further the technical and business development of the company's namesake database.

Bob Wiederhold, Couchbase CEO, told eWEEK that in total to date, his company has raised $55 million across four rounds of funding. Couchbase is still a relatively young company as it was formed in 2011 as a merger of database vendors CouchOne and Membase. As to why Couchbase is raising money now, Wiederhold admitted that he wasn't planning to raise more money until early 2014.

"Many VCs [enture capitalists] noticed the huge success of the 2.0 release we delivered last December, and they got very aggressive about wanting to invest," he said. "The valuations they offered were very compelling, so we decided to take the money now rather than wait and spend a lot of management time raising money in the future."

The Couchbase 2.0 release marked a major milestone in the evolution of the NoSQL database. With that release, Couchbase became what is known as a "document value database." As a document value database, developers can store JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) documents in the database that can then be queried. The Couchbase 2.1 release in June added further document value and caching capabilities.

Further reading

Wiederhold sees two primary uses for the new round of funding. The first is to continue to invest in product development both in terms of existing product features as well as entirely new products. The second primary use of the new round of funding will be to aggressively expand distribution and support channels around the world.

IPO

Wiederhold noted that the NoSQL market is growing very quickly and is expected to be a multibillion-dollar market. It's a market dynamic that might lead to an initial public offering (IPO) for the company in the future.

"We think public markets will be very interested in investing in companies like Couchbase," Wiederhold said. "We are well on our path to an IPO, but I don't want to make any predictions about when an IPO might happen."

Damien Katz Is Leaving

Couchbase was originally formed as a merger of CouchOne, which was founded by CouchDB database creator Damien Katz, and Membase. CouchDB is now an Apache Software Foundation project and is not directly related to Couchbase.

Katz announced this week that he is leaving Couchbase to spend more time with his family. Wiederhold noted that Katz has been a major contributor to Couchbase for the last two and a half years.

"He made a decision that his family needed him more at this point than Couchbase does, so he decided to take some time off," Wiederhold said. "Right now that is what he is focused on and he is no longer an employee, but someday he might come back to Couchbase."

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.